Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) has traditionally been performed with the use of a cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) machine to oxgenate and perfuse the body during surgery. Recently, techniques have been developed to allow for performing CABG without the use of CPB by stabilizing the epicardial surface of a beating heart at the coronary anastomotic site with a stabilizer (e.g., stabilizing feet) to allow placement of sutures through the graft vessel and recipient coronary artery. This procedure may be performed through a partial or full sternotomy, or via a thoracotomy (which is an incision between two adjacent ribs).
Access to the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery is easily performed by either a sternotomy or a thoracotomy. However, the patient typically requires bypass to multiple coronary arteries, including the circumflex artery (CxA) on the left lateral aspect of the heart, the right coronary artery (RCA) on the right lateral aspect of the heart, and the posterior descending artery (PDA) on the back side of the heart. It is very difficult to access the CxA, RCA, and PDA without a sternotomy, as the heart needs to be turned or tilted (or turned and tilted) significantly to reach its side or back, and with an intact sternum, insufficient space exists for these maneuvers. For example, the apex of the heart is generally lifted out of the body through a sternotomy in order to reach the PDA. Surgeons often place the patient in a Trendelenberg position, with the operating table tilted so that the patient's head lies lower than the feet with the patient in supine position, in order to assist with lifting the heart up and back.
An additional challenge to beating heart surgery is that some hearts do not tolerate manipulation well from a hemodynamic standpoint. The potential exists with current manipulation techniques to compress the heart (e.g., by pressing it with stabilization feet) or great vessels in such a way that hemodynamic function is compromised.
There is a need for a beating heart retraction apparatus capable of physically translating a beating heart from its natural resting place to a location better suited to surgical access, and then holding the beating heart in the latter location during surgery without compressing (or otherwise deforming) the heart or great vessels in such a way that hemodynamic function is compromised.
Typically, beating heart surgery has been accomplished through a partial sternotomy using pericardial sutures to retract the heart into the proper position for surgery, and using a stabilization apparatus (e.g., stabilizing feet) to stabilize the portion of the heart surface to be cut. Sometimes, surgery is performed on the properly positioned heart without using a stabilization apparatus.
However, conventional use of pericardial sutures for retraction of a beating heart has limitations and disadvantages including the following. It is inconvenient and potentially harmful to the patient to incise the pericardium and insert sutures along cut edges of the pericardium, and then exert tension on the sutures to move the heart together as a unit with the pericardium. When the sutures are pulled to lift the heart (with pericardium), compressive force exerted by the pericardium on at least one side of the heart sometimes constrains cardiac contraction and expansion.
There are three distinct stages involved in preparing an artery (on an organ) for anastomosis:                1. gross manipulation: the organ is physically translated from its natural resting place to a location better suited to surgical access;        2. artery presentation: the target artery on the organ is identified and the position of the organ is finely adjusted so that the target artery is approachable; and        3. artery stabilization: the target artery and surrounding tissues are immobilized, allowing fine surgical techniques on very small features.        
The present invention pertains to an improved method and apparatus for retraction (gross movement) of a beating heart or other organ into a desired position and orientation to allow surgery to be performed on the organ. When the organ has been retracted (in accordance with the invention) into a desired position and orientation, any of the many commercially available tissue stabilization products (including those marketed by Guidant, Medtronic, CardioThoracic Systems, and Ethicon) can be used to stabilize a portion of the organ's surface on which surgery is to be performed. However, such tissue stabilization products cannot duplicate the function of the inventive apparatus. Retraction requires lifting and usually rotation of the organ. Devices designed specifically for tissue stabilization are not well suited to those motions.
One class of the stabilization devices commonly used to stabilize a target portion of a heart surface (a portion on which surgery is to be performed) are the stabilization devices that comprise rigid (C-shaped or linear) structures lined with suction cups, such as those described in the article Borst, et al., “Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Without Cardiopulmonary Bypass and Without Interruption of Native Coronary Flow Using a Novel Anastomosis Site Restraining Device (“Octopus”), J. of the American College of Cardiology, Vol. 27, No. 6, pp 1356-1364, May 1996. The stabilization devices described in the Borst, et al. article are marketed by Medtronic, Inc. and are known as “Octopus” devices.
It has been proposed to use such an Octopus device to retract the heart into a desired position for surgery (and hold the retracted heart in this position), as well as to stabilize a portion of the heart's surface following retraction (gross movement) of the heart. See, for example, PCT International Application WO97/10753 (by Medtronic, Inc.) entitled “Method and Apparatus for Temporarily Immobilizing a Local Area of Tissue,” published Mar. 27, 1997, especially with reference to FIG. 33 thereof. However, no conventional Octopus device can support a beating heart with adequate compliance to allow normal heart beating movement, and instead each conventional Octopus device would exert compressive or twisting force on at least one side of the beating heart, thereby constraining cardiac contraction and expansion. Also, one of the small-diameter suction cups of a conventional Octopus device would be too small to reliably grip (and support) the heart without causing trauma to the heart surface. Thus, in order to reliably (but atraumatically) retract and support the heart in the retracted position, many small-diameter suction cups (supported on a rigid frame which frame is itself rigidly supported) need to exert suction simultaneously on the heart, which exacerbates the problem of constrained cardiac contraction and expansion due to the exertion of compressive or twisting force on the heart.
The apparatus of the invention differs in purpose and form from conventional tissue stabilization devices. The purpose of the inventive apparatus is to move an organ grossly from one position to another and maintain the organ in the final position (without significantly constraining cardiac contraction and expansion). The inventive apparatus is not designed to stabilize specific areas of the organ. The shape and nature of the suction cup (or other suction member) of the inventive apparatus differ from the suction cups of conventional tissue stabilization devices in the need to accommodate different anatomy. For example, the inventive suction member can be larger than a conventional tissue stabilization device. Also, since the inventive apparatus exerts suction over a larger surface area of organ tissue, the required pressure differential can be less than that required by conventional tissue stabilization devices. The low-pressure differential has a clinical benefit in that the potential for creation of hematomas is lessened.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,661, issued Sep. 1, 1998 to Boyd, et al. (and assigned to Heartport, Inc.) describes (with reference to FIGS. 33A-33C) a suction cup manipulator on a long shaft. The suction cup is to be attached to an arrested heart by suction, and the devices is then manipulated to move the heart around in the chest cavity. A vacuum is applied to the cup to provide suction, and the vacuum is said preferably to have a value not less than −150 mmHg (to avoid tissue damage). The suction cup is made of a soft, flexible elastomeric material such as silicone rubber, has a diameter of approximately 12 mm to 50 mm, and has a textured, high friction distal surface (for gripping the heart). The high friction can be achieved by a pattern of bumps or an absorbent high friction material (such as nonwoven polyester fabric). A disadvantage of the bumps is that they would likely cause trauma to the organ being manipulated (even with a vacuum in the preferred range).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,661 suggests without explanation that the suction cup is flexibly mounted to the distal end of a rigid shaft, but it is apparent from FIGS. 33A-33B that this simply means that the cup itself has some flexibility so that the cup can bend relative to the rigid shaft. U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,661 does not teach attaching the suction cup to the shaft by a joint which provides limited freedom to translate along a first axis and/or full (or at least limited) freedom to rotate about the first axis, but no significant freedom to translate in directions perpendicular to the first axis. Thus, the suction cup apparatus described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,611 is useful only to retract an arrested heart; not a beating heart or other moving organ since the suction cup apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,611 does not have compliance to allow for normal organ movement such as a heart beat, and would instead exert compressive or twisting force on at least one side of the moving organ, thereby constraining cardiac contraction and expansion or other normal organ movement.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,782,746, issued Jul. 21, 1998, discloses an annular suction device for immobilizing part of the surface of a heart during surgery. Although the device is said to allow the heart to beat in a “relatively normal” manner during surgery, the device is rigidly mounted to a fixed mounting structure during surgery, and thus neither the device nor the part of the heart surface which it immobilizes would have freedom to move significantly relative to the mounting structure during surgery. The reference suggests positioning the device on the heart, applying vacuum to the device to cause it to exert suction on the heart, then moving the device to “partially” raise the heart, and then rigidly mounting the device to the fixed mounting structure so that the device supports the “partially raised” heart during surgery.
A key difference between the inventive apparatus and both conventional apparatus for tissue stabilization and conventional apparatus for organ retraction is that the inventive apparatus provides system compliance that allows the target organ to maintain normal motion (e.g., normal compression and expansion in the case that the organ is a beating heart). In the case of a beating heart, this compliance provides distinct clinical value by lessening the negative impact of manipulation on hemodynamics.